The cave contains no drip formations, notwithstanding which it is one of the most charming, and when invited to name it I called it Powell Cave, in honor of the most ardent admirer of caves in that county, and to whom I am much indebted for valued assistance.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] Editor of the county news-paper.



CHAPTER V.

OTHER STONE COUNTY CAVES.

GENTRY CAVE.

The cave nearest to Galena, and the first visited by us, is Gentry Cave, situated a mile and a half from town. We started in the mail coach, but that vehicle met with a misfortune by no means unusual in that region, the total wreck of a wheel. Having only that morning arrived from the rich agricultural portion of the State where no surface rock can be found, we were pleased enough with the prospect of a walk in such charming spring weather, and set out with a cheerful certainty that the rough place in the road would soon be passed. But the school of experience is always open for the reception of new-comers and we were admitted to full duty without question.

The topography was nearly as broken, in its way, as the natural "piking" spread over it, and very beautiful with the dense forests lighted by the slanting yellow rays of the afternoon sun. The way leads up to the "ridge road" which is at length abandoned for no road at all, and descending through the forest, more than half the distance down to the James River flowing at the base of the hill, we come suddenly in view of the cave entrance, which is probably one of the most magnificent pieces of natural architecture ever seen.

Rounding a corner by a narrow path, we step onto a covered portico ninety-seven feet long, with an average width of ten feet. The floor is smooth and level, as also is the ceiling, which is nine feet above, supported by handsomely carved pillars and rising in a gray cliff projecting from the slope of the hill above, out to the brink of the more abrupt descent to the water's edge ninety feet below. Between the pillars are three large door-ways into the cave. The comparison suggested is an Egyptian temple, and the idea is continued within, where there are no chambers as in other caves; but instead, the entire interior is a labyrinth of passages winding about in every direction among an uncounted number of low massive pillars, some supporting a low ceiling and others connected by high arches, the highest point being estimated at sixty feet, but appearing to be more, because the enclosed space rising to a dome is so narrow that the point of view is necessarily directly underneath.

All exposed surfaces of pillars and walls inside the cave are of clay or a soft porous rock having the same appearance, and are covered with curious little raised markings like the indescribable designs of mixed nothing generally known as "Persian patterns." This is, of course, easily explained; the clay being the residuum from disintegrated limestone, the markings described are the harder portions of the rock remaining after particles of clay had been carried out by flowing water while the disintegrating process was yet incomplete.

The Drinking Fountain is considered the great attraction of the cave, and appears to have been fashioned to suggest a model for the handsome soda fountains belonging to a later period. The water bowl is a large depression worn in the top of a rock which seems to have been built into the wall. In front it is five feet high and nine feet across, with artistic corners approximately alike, and at the back ornamental carving extends upward towards the ceiling with an opening through the wall at the center. This opening is divided by a short column down which water trickles to supply the bowl. The ceiling here is about thirty-five feet high and most of the exposed surface is a blue-gray limestone. Only one portion of Gentry Cave has received a deposit of dripstone and even that is of limited extent, and located at the end of a narrow slippery passage between high, slippery walls.

The fine entrance is of grey limestone in undisturbed horizontal strata, and this is so plainly marked in the roof-supporting pillars as to give them the appearance of having been prepared by skillful hands, in several blocks, and afterwards arranged in place without the aid of mortar. Unfortunately, all efforts to photograph this wonderful portico have failed to give satisfaction—its position above the river being such as to afford no point for the proper placing of the camera; but a second visit made for the purpose of trying was far from being a loss, and part of the reward consisted of finding among the sheltered rocks, scarcely three feet above the floor, two humming birds' nests with their treasure of small eggs, and our little companion who discovered them was pleased to leave them untouched.

SUGAR TREE HOLLOW CAVE.

The name of this cave is due to the fact that the approach is through a "hollow" well wooded with sugar maple trees. It is two miles from Galena and the drive a beautiful one, as much of the way is through the forest without a road, but with a charming little rushing, crooked stream of clear, cold water: and in places the green slopes give way to mural bluffs of grey limestone in undisturbed strata.

The entrance to the cave is through a hole about two feet high by three in width, into which we went feet first and wiggled slowly down an incline covered with broken rock, for a distance of fifteen feet, where a standing depth is reached. A flat, straight, level ceiling extends over the whole cave without any perceptible variation, and this is bordered around its entire length and breadth with a heavy cornice of dripstone, made very ornamental by the forms it assumes, and the multitude of depending stalactites that fall as a fringe around the walls. The line of contact between the cornice and ceiling is as clear and strong as if both had been finished separately before the cornice was put in place by skillful hands.

Dripstone covers the walls, which vary in height from one foot to twenty feet, according to the irregularities of the floor, just as the width of this one-room cave varies with the curves of the walls, which are sweeping and graceful, the average being twenty-nine feet, but is much greater at the entrance where the entire slope extends out beyond the body of the cave. The length, from north to south, measures two hundred and thirty-three feet exclusive of an inaccessible extension.

The south end of the cave rises by a steep slope to within a foot of the ceiling with which it is connected by short but heavy columns of dripstone, and another line of pillars of graduated height meets this at right angles near the middle and ends in an immense stalagmite that stands at the foot of the slope like a grand newel post.

There is no standing water in the cave, but everything is wet with drip, and consequently the formation of onyx is actively progressing and the south slope already mentioned shows a curious succession of changes in cave affairs. By the slow action of acidulated waters, the grey limestone deteriorated into a yellowish clay-bank, and now its particles are being re-united into solid rock by the deposit of calcium carbonate from the drip.

A careful test of the temperature of the atmosphere showed it to be fifty-eight degrees.

PINE RUN CAVE.

This also is a small cave easily visited from Galena, being less than two miles distant on the Marionville road. The entrance faces the road and is on the same level, consequently it is one of the easiest to visit. Just within is seen an opening in the ceiling, which we are told is one of the two ways to an upper chamber whose chief attraction is a dripstone piano, and the means of ascending is at hand in the form of a Spanish ladder; but an attempt of that sort might even cause the new woman to hesitate, and who hesitates is lost. The ascent was not made. We advanced on a level with the road for a distance of perhaps twenty feet, when the direction of the cave changed with a right angular turn and we were in a straight gallery about two hundred and fifty feet long and fifteen feet in width, the height gradually decreasing to about three feet towards the upper end, where it widened out into a low but broad chamber. The floor of this chamber is most beautiful. It is composed of a series of connected calcite bowls whose beautifully fluted rims are of regular and uniform height, and all are equally filled with clear, still water. A great number of these basins are said to have been destroyed by an ax in the hands of a poor witless creature for the gratification of a burst of temper, and a magnificent stalagmitic column, too heavy for one man to lift, lay detached and broken, in proof that his body did not share the feebleness of his mind.

Beyond these basins is a low passage through which is found the second entrance to the upper chamber, but the basins must be crossed in order to reach it, and this is not an easy undertaking even when their water supply is low, but in the early summer they are almost full.

There are said to be more than one hundred caves in Stone County, one of which is supposed to be fully as large as Marble Cave, if not larger, and is located in the southern part of the county but has not been explored.

Mill Cave is in the northeast of the county, and at the entrance is a saw mill which receives its working power from the cave stream. Inside the cave there is a lake.

Hermit's Cave is a few miles from Galena, and is so named on account of having been used as a dwelling by its former owner, who kept a coffin in which he intended to place himself before the final summons, but was overtaken by death in the forest and it was never used. He wrote sermons on the rocks in his cave and one of these was afterwards removed.

Wolf's Den is also near Galena, and has been utilized as a sheep fold.

Wild Man's Cave is near Galena, and on account of the stories with which people have been frightened, can only be visited by permission and with a guard stationed at the entrance.

Reynard's Cave is four miles west of Galena on the farm of Dr. Fox, but is so nearly filled up with dripstone that only crawling room remains. The doctor's place is a fine locality for the collection of fossils.

At a distance of twelve miles from Galena there is said to be a fine natural bridge, well worth a visit and sufficiently near Mill Cave for both to be seen on the same trip.

In Bread Tray Mountain there is supposed to be a cave through which a torrent rushes at times, that being the only way in which to explain the strange thundering, roaring noise always heard after a storm, and never at other times.

Besides being a wonderful cave region, and rich in the great abundance and variety of native fruits and fine timber, Stone County has a vast amount of mineral wealth, the heaviest deposits being zinc, lead and iron, with some indications of silver, gold and copper, which have been found but not in paying quantity. Already since the summer of 1896 several exceptionally pure bodies of zinc have been discovered, the white ore of one recently opened deposit giving highly gratifying indications as to extent. Prospecting may be said to have only commenced in this very far from over-crowded region.



CHAPTER VI.

OREGON COUNTY CAVES.

GREER SPRING.

Oregon County is also at the extreme southern limit of the State of Missouri and was visited, not because its caves are supposed to be either finer or more numerous than those of all the other Ozark counties, but on account of remarkable attractions associated with them that are not known to be equaled, or even subject to rivalry, by any similar works of nature in any portion of the world.

The most convenient railway point is Thayer; the station hotel affords comfortable accommodations for headquarters, and the last days of September proved a charming time. The foliage was in full summer glory, refreshed by a gentle and copious rain, and the insinuating tick had already retired from active business until the following season.

The carriage having been ordered on condition of its being a clear day, we left Thayer at eight o'clock on a perfect morning to visit Greer Spring, and were soon in the depth of the beautiful Ozark forest, from which we did not once emerge until Alton, the county seat, was reached, the distance traveled being sixteen miles. Here we stopped for dinner at the small hotel kept by one of the old-time early settlers who came to the region before the war. The dinner was a surprise, and received the highest commendation possible to a dinner, the hearty appreciation of a boy. A young nephew, Arthur J. Owen, having been invited to act as escort on the trip, found all the varied experience in cave hunting fully equal to the pictured joys of anticipation. After a large bell suspended somewhere outside had notified the business public that dinner was ready to be served, we were invited to the dining-room, where on a long table was the abundance of vegetables afforded by the season and soil of an almost tropical state, and cooked as the white-capped chef of the great hotel, where the warm weeks were spent, had not learned the secret of; and the delicately fried chicken was not of that curious variety, commonly encountered by travelers, in which the development of legs robs the centiped of his only claim to distinction. As the dishes cooled they were removed and fresh supplies brought in.

Our driver received directions about the road and we started on another drive of seven miles. These directions were "to follow the main road to the forks, and then keep to the Van Buren road and any one could tell us where Captain Greer lives."

The road was, as before, through the park-like forest, and as before, lay chiefly along the ridge, so that where clearings had been made for farms there were fine views over the distant country, which everywhere was forest-covered hills, of a rich green near at hand but changing with the growth of distance, first to dark, and then to lighter blue.

In these forests were fine young cattle and horses, and uncounted numbers of "razorbacks," or as they are otherwise called, "wind-splitters." For the benefit of those who may not be familiar with the names, it might be well to explain that they are the natural heirs of the native wild hog of Missouri and Arkansas. The nephew was greatly amused at seeing many of them with wooden yokes on their long necks, to prevent an easy entrance into fields and gardens by squeezing through the spaces between fence rails. These animals are such swift runners it is said they can safely cross the railroad between trucks of the fast express. Their snouts are so long and thin, it is also claimed that two can drink from a jug at the same time; never having seen it done, however, this is not vouched for, but merely repeated as hearsay.



After a time we stopped to inquire the way of an old man dipping water from a pond by the roadside. He told us he was dipping water to wash the wheat he was sowing in the field just over the fence, and that we reach the forks, then to keep the Van Buren road, pass two houses on the left, a white one on the right, another on the left and then inquire the way—anyone could tell us, and Captain Greer would show us to the Spring, "for he is a mighty accommodating man."

On we went to the forks where in the point of the Y stood a large tree with a Van Buren sign-board on one side, and in the direction it pointed, we turned, although rather reluctantly, for it looked little used and rocky, while the other was in good condition; but we followed the sign-board and had no misgivings until it began to be realized that a great deal of time was being passed but no houses. The morning had been very chilly, but now the atmosphere was just at that balmy point between warm and cool that makes mere living an unqualified luxury; and added to this we soon found ourselves in a deep canon no less beautiful than the justly celebrated North Cheyenne Canon near Colorado Springs.

There was now no doubt that we were on the wrong road, but such magnificence was unexpected and not to be turned from with indifference.

For some distance the road makes a gradual and rather perilous looking descent along the steep and broken slope on the shady side of the ancient river's great retaining-wall, while that opposite is glorified by the brilliant glow of the afternoon sun, which adds an equal charm to the rich, luxuriant foliage below and the tall stately pines that adorn, without concealing, the grey rock they proudly cling to, or that rises in a protecting rampart three hundred feet higher than the canon bed, with banners of the long-needled pine waving above to proclaim the perfection of Nature's undisturbed freedom.

The road descending crosses the thread of water still flowing among the great rounded bowlders left by the former torrent, and our view is changed to one of dense, but by no means melancholy, shadows, with a crown of golden sunlight; and presently the course of the canon turns to the east, and it is all filled with the yellow rays and we notice the bright red hawthorn berries, and masses of hydrangea still showing remnants of their late profusion of bloom. We Missourians have a great love of fine scenery and generally take long journeys into other states in order to gratify the taste, while quite unconscious of the wonderful beauty and grandeur of the Ozarks.

Where the canon begins to broaden into a small sheltered valley as it approaches Eleven Points River, we turned and retraced our way to the forks, and a short distance beyond to a house where we might again inquire. A woman came to the open door as we stopped and in answer to a question said: "You ought to have asked me when you passed here a while ago."

Apologies for the seeming neglect were offered and accepted, then she explained that both roads went to Van Buren but not to Greer Spring, where in due time we at length arrived.

The house being in one corner of a "forty" and the spring in that diagonally opposite, there was a walk of nearly that distance before coming to an old road inclining steeply down into what looked to be a narrow canon. About midway of this sloping road, the space confined between perpendicular walls, rising to heights above on one side and descending to the stream on the other, widens suddenly and a picturesque old mill comes into view, it having been wholly screened from the approach by the rich growth of shrubs and trees. Chief in abundance among this luxury of leaf was the hydrangea,—a favorite shrub largely imported into this country from Japan before it was discovered as a native. The mill site seems to have been selected for its beauty although we were told that at this point the stream is seventy-two feet wide, and two and one half feet deep, but could be raised thirty feet with perfect safety by a dam, for which the rock is already on the ground and much of it broken ready for use. The flow is said to be two hundred and eighty yards per minute, with no appreciable variation, and never freezes. The high walls of the Greer Spring gorge will, of course, far more than double the value it would otherwise possess, when it becomes desirable to control and turn to practical account the power now going so cheerily to waste, but the artistic loss will be proportionately severe.

The old mill was the scene of great activity in former times, but was closed on account of an unfortunate accident and for years has had no other duty than simply to serve as a portion of the landscape.

Just beyond, the canon makes a curving bend, the road dwindles to a narrow path and we behold the most beautiful scene imaginable.

The canon has come to an end and is shut in by a graceful curve of the high, perpendicular grey walls that are crowned with trees and shrubs, and decked below with a thick carpet of bright green moss. In this basin, which is nearly one hundred feet across, Greer Spring plunges up from beneath through an opening nine feet in diameter, in the midst of a pool of water six feet deep, and having an unvarying temperature of forty-nine degrees throughout the year. This water is so perfectly clear that not the least pebble is obscured from view, and the color scheme is most marvelous.



Where the great spring forces its way to the surface, the water is a deep, brilliant blue with white caps, and its falling weight keeps clear of moss a large spot of fine, pure, white sandstone, while all the balance appears a vivid green from the moss that thrives beneath the moving water; and surrounding these are the handsome, foliage-decked grey walls. The edges of the basin are thickly strewn with fallen rocks deeply covered with moss, in which small ferns are growing, and on these gay stepping stones we crossed to the head-wall of the canon to find ourselves at the open mouth of a cave from which flows a clear, shallow stream to join the waters of the Spring in that wonderful basin. The entrance to the cave is an arch about fifteen feet wide and twelve feet high, with the clear, shallow stream spreading over the clean rock floor from side to side. Here now was presented a difficulty. Truly the cave was not quite dry. The water was about ten inches deep, and my boots in Thayer. Contrary to advice, however, my nephew had brought his, and with a boy's kindness loaned them while he made the trip with bare feet and rolled up trousers.

A short distance within, the cave widens and the floor of the extension being somewhat higher, is dry, but the roof drops so low over it that the water-course is an easier route of travel; and this soon widens into a lake above which the ceiling rises in a broad dome less than twenty feet in height, and hung with heavy masses of dripstone draperies of varying length, from five to seven feet; and all the ceilings are fringed at various heights with stalactites of every size and age, some being a clear, colorless onyx, while others proclaim their great age in the fact that they have so deteriorated that the onyx texture is either partly or completely lost, and what was once a pure drip crystal has returned to a common, porous, dull-colored limestone so soft that portions can be rubbed to powder in the hand.

Picking the way carefully as the depth of the lovely lake increased, we followed the sound of falling water and peered into the dark distance in a vain effort to see it, yet expecting to reach that special object of interest by keeping to the shallower parts of the lake. These expectations were shattered suddenly when the boots filled with water, and that called to mind the fact that twenty-three miles and a chilly night lay between us and dry clothing; so we returned to the outside world and rested on the rocks where Captain Greer and our young driver waited for us. The cave has never been fully explored, and probably we penetrated farther than others have ever done, as the owner knew nothing of the falling water we so distinctly heard and were surely very near.

The view from the rocks is wonderfully beautiful and includes both the entrance to the cave, with its flowing stream, and the receiving basin with its bounding stream. But it was growing late in the afternoon, and there was another cave whose entrance was in the perpendicular wall above the end of the path by which we had come. This entrance could be reached by a dilapidated ladder; assisted by a forked pole and supplied with candles and matches, my nephew and I achieved the ascent with not much trouble. Here we found what is, no doubt, one of the oldest caves known.

The original cavity is nearly filled up with masses of onyx—colorless crystal and white striped with pale shades of grey. The cave is perfectly dry and freshly broken surfaces in some places show signs of deterioration, so how can we venture even a guess as to the time it has required to first excavate the cave and then fill it with masses of rock deposited by the slow drip process, and later, for that crystalline rock in a now dry atmosphere to present a perceptible weakening? We went as far as passages could be crawled into, which was no great distance, and at once started on our uncertain descent of the ladder; but this was not a matter of so much concern as the upward trip, for the success of which some doubts were entertained; for going down is always naturally a less certain matter, as one can fall if more desirable means are unsuccessful, and I have unexpectedly reached many coveted points in this simple manner.

Taking a last look at Greer Spring with its cave river, grey walls, gay with foliage, and all the harmony of color and form combined in the narrow canon that was once the main body of a great cave, I recalled views on the Hudson River and in the mountains of Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania, and others out in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and the Wausatch in Utah, but amid all their wonderful grandeur and famous beauty, could remember no spot superior to this masterpiece of the Ozarks.

The proprietor of the Spring and a thousand acres of land adjacent, took personal possession on the day of Lincoln's first election, to establish a home.

The sun having failed to consider our wishes was now about to disappear in a gleaming flood of gold, so the return to Thayer that night was out of the question. Our host and his wife observed that fact and cordially invited us to remain for the night and as much longer as we would like to, but being unwilling to impose on kindness to such an extent, we returned to the hotel in Alton, and now urgently advise that those who ever have an opportunity to enjoy a moonlight drive through the Ozark forests should not let it pass unimproved.

OTHER CAVES NEAR BY.

About twelve miles from Alton there are three other caves worthy of attention. Two of these are known only as The Saltpetre Caves, and the third as The Bat Cave.

Not many persons care to visit the Bat Cave, for although its inhabitants are small, they have evidently decided to profit by the experience of the Red Man and take no risks through hospitality. Their warnings can be heard like distant thunder for some distance outside the cave, and any unheeding intruder is set upon in fury by such vast numbers of the little creatures that his only safety is in hasty retreat.

During the war the two Saltpetre Caves were worked to a considerable extent, and also served as safe retreats for the residents of the region, as well as the visiting "Jonny," when the vicinity became oppressively "blue."

Both of these caves are especially notable on account of the fine stalactites with which they are abundantly supplied; most of them being snow white and from fourteen to twenty feet in length.

Unfortunately, most of the caves in this region have been deprived of great quantities of their beautiful adornments by visitors who are allowed to choose the best and remove it in such quantities as may suit their convenience and pleasure. Those who own the caves, and those who visit them, would do well to remember that if all the natural adornment should be allowed to remain in its original position, it would continue to afford pleasure to many persons for an indefinite time; but if broken, removed, and scattered the pleasure to a few will be comparatively little and that short-lived. The gift of beauty should always be honored and protected for the public good.

We were not so fortunate as to discover fossils of any kind in this locality, although the search was by no means thorough; but even if it had been the result might have been the same, since that county and others adjoining have been mapped as Cambrian. The greater part of the exposed rock is a fine sandstone almost as white as gypsum on a fresh fracture, and much of it is ripple-marked so as to show a beautifully fluted surface of remarkable regularity. These ripple flutings are sometimes more than an inch in width, and often less, but the variations never appear on the same level, the smallest being seen on the hill-tops and the larger outcropping on the downward slopes.



CHAPTER VII.

THE GRAND GULF.

Oregon County, Missouri, is also fortunate in having within its limits the Grand Gulf, which has been declared by competent judges to be one of the wonders of the world; and it offers a combination of attractions that certainly entitles it to an important place among a limited few of America's choicest scenes.

The Gulf is nearly nine miles northwest of Thayer, Missouri, and about equally distant from Mammoth Spring in Arkansas, just a little south of the Missouri state line. The drive is a pleasant one, as the road winds among the forest-clad hills and passes occasional fields of cotton and corn; but having been macadamized in very ancient times by the original and all-powerful general government of that early period is somewhat rough, yet threatens no danger greater than the destruction of wheels.

The only approach to the Gulf is over the hill-tops; and the entrance in past times, while it was still a cave, must have been a sink-hole in the roof of the largest chamber. This chamber is now the upper end of the Grand Gulf, and into it we descended by a rugged path, sufficiently difficult to maintain expectations of grandeur that are not doomed to disappointment. The precipitous walls, two hundred feet in height, bear a faithful record of the energy of circling floods; but instead of frowning, as some good people persistently accuse all noble heights of doing, they seem to look with conscious pride towards the windings of the great rough chasm, where every available spot has been seized on as a homestead for some form of vegetation. All the great, dark rock masses that interfere with easy progress along the lowest depth, were surrounded by a feathery setting of blooming white agaratum; and each turn in the winding course reveals new charms of rock and verdure with their varying lights and shadows until the crowning glory is reached at the Natural Bridge, about twelve hundred feet from the upper end of the canon. This bridge is magnificent. It was impossible to secure photographs because the abrupt curve by which it is approached gave no point of view for a small camera; and it was equally impossible to reach desirable points for taking measurements, but the open arch is not less than twenty feet wide and considerably more than that in height. From the floor or bed of the Gulf to the road that crosses the bridge is more than two hundred feet. The passage under the bridge makes a curve, the shortest side of which measures exactly two hundred and nineteen feet, and as the width varies from twenty to forty feet, the other side is longer. Most of the floor is flat and level as also is the ceiling, the greatest irregularities being along the wall of greater length which shows at what points the rushing water has spent its force. No water flows through here now except in times of heavy rainfall. The other end of the bridge has a somewhat smaller span but is very handsome, and the outward views from both are exceedingly fine. After traversing about four hundred feet more of the beautiful, high-walled Gulf, we stood before the grand entrance to the cave, which is strikingly similar to the first arch of the bridge. The only picture I was able to get was taken from the slope of the Bridge-crown, one hundred feet below the road, and merely gives a suggestion of the magnificence waiting peacefully for the crowds of eager and enthusiastic sight-seers who will in the near future rush to this charming region in the "Land of the Big Red Apple."

My companions were the same as mentioned in the preceding chapter, a nephew, James Arther Owen, and an obliging, tall young man of twenty, who acted as guide and driver.

Relieving ourselves of all superfluous burdens just within the cave entrance, we lighted candles and sat down to wait for our eyes to adjust themselves to the changed condition, from brilliant sunlight to absolute darkness, broken only by the feeble strength of three candles. It was noticeable that in the moist atmosphere of the Missouri caves, three candles were not more than equal to one in the dry caves of South Dakota.

Very soon we were able to continue the inspection of our surroundings, and the large passage we were in would more properly be called a long chamber, of irregular width but averaging about thirty feet. This ends abruptly nearly five hundred feet from the entrance, but a small passage scarcely more than six feet high runs off at right angles, and into this we turn. It is not quite so nearly dry as the outer chamber, and at a distance of less than one hundred feet we suddenly come to the end of dry land at an elbow of the silently flowing river whose channel we had almost stepped into. The ceiling dipped so we were not able to stand straight, and the guide said he had never gone farther; but to his surprise here was a light boat which I am ready to admit he displayed no eagerness to appropriate to his own use, and swimming about it, close to shore, were numerous small, eyeless fish, pure white and perfectly fearless; the first I had ever seen, and little beauties.

By burning magnesium ribbon we saw that the passage before us was a low arch and occupied from wall to wall by water, the direction of the flow being into another of somewhat greater size at right angles to that by which we had come, and at the mouth of this lay the boat. The distance we could see in either direction was of tantalizing shortness, and the boat was provided with no means of guidance or control, save an abundance of slender twine which secured it to a log of drift from the outside; so I decided to leave my companions in charge of the main coil of twine while I went on an excursion alone, there being not much evident cause for apprehension as no living cow could ever have made the trip to this favored spot.

Although the water looked perfectly placid, the boat drifted with surprising speed, so that the two scared faces peering after me were soon lost sight of. The channel was nowhere more than six feet wide, consequently as the boat inclined to drive against either wall I was able with care to keep it off the rocks with my hands, and in the same way guide it around the sharp turns in safety. After several of these turns there appeared the mouth of a passage so much smaller that the roof was only twelve inches above the sides of the boat and I could touch both walls at the same time. By running the boat across this it was held in place by the current, and I could sit at ease and enjoy the position, which even the least imaginative person can readily conceive to have been a novel one.

The small eyeless fish had been noticeable in the water everywhere but now came swimming about the boat in an astonishing multitude, and as unconscious of any possible danger as bees in a flower garden. Having no eyes, they were naturally undisturbed by the light, so the candle could be held close to the water for a satisfactory examination of the happy creatures.

They bore a striking resemblance to minnows, although a few were larger, and it is claimed that four or five inches are sizes not unusual, but they happened not to be on exhibition. Even dipping a hand into the water in their midst occasioned no alarm, and they might have been caught by dozens.

The guide now loudly called that he had fears of the twine being cut on the sharp edges of rock, and that cutting off all possibility of the boat's return, which being sufficiently reasonable, explorations were indefinitely suspended, and a landing soon made. The camera and flash-light were then prepared for taking a view, and a point of light being needed to work by the nephew was asked to sit in the boat with his candle, to which he readily consented; but judging from the developed picture it may be doubted if his pleasure at the time was extremely keen.

On leaving the cave the guide said it would not be necessary to return to the upper end of the Gulf in order to reach the surface, as the ascent could be made in another place; and leading the way to the left of the entrance he started up the nearly perpendicular wall, more than two hundred feet high, by a sort of "blind trail" that would have caused a mountain sheep to sigh for wings, but it was very beautiful.

We walked over to the wagon road on the high ridge above the middle of the bridge and going down the forest-clad slopes to the perpendicular wall in which is the smaller of the great arches, admired from this fair point of view the marvelous grandeur of one of the greatest natural wonders.

The weather being perfect after a rain the day before, there was no need of haste to get indoors, so we lingered into the afternoon and then drove to the Mammoth Spring, in Arkansas, a short distance south of the Missouri state line, where the Cave River, just visited, comes to the surface in a bounding spring of great force. The distance being little less than nine miles.

The basin filled by the Spring might be called a lake, as its size of two hundred by three hundred feet gives it that appearance, and the color is a remarkable deep blue. The volume of water is so nearly uniform that the height seldom varies more than two or three inches, but three years ago a storm of unusual violence carried out most of the native fish, and in restocking from Government supplies, the clear, cold water suggested an experiment with mountain trout which are found to be doing well.

Where Mammoth Spring flows out its power is utilized by a flour mill on one bank and a cotton mill on the other, and the water flowing on forms Spring River, well known for the charm of its beautiful scenery.

This Spring is described by Dr. David Dale Owen in his First Report of a Geological Reconnoissance of the northern counties of Arkansas, 1857 and 1858, pp. 60-61.



CHAPTER VIII.

THE BLACK HILLS AND BAD LANDS.

In order to thoroughly appreciate and enjoy the wonderful caves of South Dakota, which are found within the limits of the Black Hills, it is necessary to have some knowledge of the geological character and history of that peculiar region.

Prof. J.E. Todd, State Geologist, in his "Preliminary Report on the Geology of South Dakota," gives an interesting "Historical Sketch of Explorations" in his state, beginning with the expedition of Captains Lewis and Clark to the upper Missouri regions in 1804-6 to explore that portion of the recent Louisiana Purchase for the government and notify the Indians of the transfer; and including all other important expeditions since that time down to his own official tour of the Black Hills and Bad Lands in 1894. His own descriptions are so concise and graphic as to invite quotation. Of the Hills he says:

"The Black Hills have an area of five-thousand square miles of a rudely elliptical form with its major axis, approximately, north-northwest. Most of this area lies within our state. The true limit of the Hills is quite distinctly marked by a sharp ridge of sandstone, three hundred to six hundred feet in relative height, which becomes broader and more plateau-like towards the north and south ends. This ridge is separated from the higher mass of hills within by a valley one to three miles in breadth, which is known as the Red Valley, from its brick-red soil, or the 'race course,' which name was given it by the Indians because of its open and smooth character, affording easy and rapid passage around the Hills. The junction of the outer base of the Hills with the surrounding table lands has an altitude of three thousand, five hundred to four thousand feet. Within this Red Valley one gradually ascends the outer slope of the Hills and soon enters, at an altitude of four thousand five hundred or five thousand feet, the woody portion of the region. This outer slope varies greatly in width and is underlaid by older sedimentary rocks, cut in almost every direction by narrow deep canons. This feature covers nearly the whole of the western half of the Hills proper, where erosion has been less active on account of its distance from the main channels of drainage. Usually, from the broken interior edge of this slope or sedimentary plateau one descends a bluff or escarpment, and enters the central area of slates, granite, and quartzites, which is carved into high ridges and sharp peaks cut by many narrow and deep valleys and ravines and generally thickly timbered with the common pine of the Rocky Mountains. Toward the south, about Harney Peak, the surface is peculiarly rugged and difficult to traverse. Toward the north, also, about Terry and Custer peaks, a smaller rugged surface appears; but in the central area between and extending west of the Harney range is a region which is characterized by open and level parks much lower than the surrounding peaks and ridges."

The Archaean rocks which form the core of the Hills mark the center of the various uplifts which have attended their formation and controlled their history. The coarse granite of Harney Peak indicating that, as the central point of the earliest upheaval, and the three porphyries known as rhyolite, trachyte, and phonolite, showing the uplifts of later periods to have had their centers a little more to the north, but the entire area is said to be only about sixty miles long and twenty-five miles in width. It is exceptionally rough and mountainous, and consequently has great charms for the lover of fine scenery. Erosion has only partially denuded the peaks of the sedimentary rocks through which they were thrust up, or by which they were overlaid during the earlier part of several subsequent periods of submersion. The Hills, in these remote times, led but a doubtful and precarious existence, being now an isolated island rising out of a shallow sea, and then, owing to a general subsidence, submerged in the ocean to so great a depth that even Harney Peak is supposed to have almost, if not entirely, disappeared. This up and down motion continued at intervals until the Fox Hills epoch of the Cretaceous Age, at the close of which the sea retired forever from that portion of the country. In the next epoch fresh water work began and extensive marshes were formed, with an abundant growth of vegetation and reptiles. There was also much volcanic violence which resulted in the fine scenery in the north end of the Black Hills, and probably opened the fissures to form Wind Cave, the Onyx Caves in the southern hills and Crystal Cave near the eastern edge toward the north. This was near the close of the Cretaceous Age. But here is a point on which the best authorities who have studied the porphyry peaks, have failed to agree; Prof. N.H. Winchell believing that the intrusion occurred, probably, during the Jura Trias, but as Cretaceous beds, of more recent date, are found to have been distorted by the outflow, it seems that Professors Todd, Newton and Carpenter hold the stronger position and that the later time is correct.

No record of the next geological stage, which was the Eocene, or earlier part of the Tertiary Age, has been found in the Hills, because they were at that time dry land with gently flowing, shallow streams, and consequently no strata were laid down; but they are supposed, through later evidences, to have had a tropical climate and vegetation, enjoyed by large animals of strange new forms. The volume of fresh water afterwards became so great that immense lakes spread over large portions of the west, one of which occupied most of the region around the Black Hills at the beginning of the Miocene, and animal life was more abundant than ever before and of higher orders, many species being the same as are now in existence. The weather became more and more inclement and as the storms increased the erosion of the Hills also increased, and the rivers changed to torrents with deep channels. Earthquakes are supposed to have occurred and also volcanic eruptions.

The Black Hills were now rising steadily, and as the slope of the streams increased, the channels cut deeper, and the fissures now known as caves had long been filled with water.

The most important of the numerous animals of the Tertiary Age yet discovered in the Hills and surrounding region, are the Titanotherium or Brontotherium, similar to our Hippopotamus, the Oreodon, and a small horse having three toes on each foot. A little later in the same Age the horses were similar to those of the present time and of equal size, which proves that the wild horses of the West were not descended from the few lost by the Spanish Invaders. At this time the first lions, camels, mastodons, and mammoths also appeared. The remains of these animals are so abundant in places as to indicate that they perished in herds that were overwhelmed suddenly by great floods, and many, no doubt, huddled together and perished with cold; for with the beginning of the present age the Hills had reached their highest elevation, the inclement weather increased, and the tropical climate suddenly changed to one extremely cold. It was the beginning of the Glacial Period or Ice Age, when a large portion of the United States is supposed to have been covered by a sheet of ice. The ice is believed to have entered South Dakota from the northeast and its drift across the state limited by a line so closely following the present course of the Missouri River that many of us would be inclined to consider it the western bluff. Beyond this line the ice failed to push its way, but the Hills were subject to heavy rain storms that filled the streams and carried large quantities of bowlders and other eroded material, both coarse and fine, down into the valleys and over the lower hills, where much of the moderately coarse can now be seen exposed on the surface, and fine specimens collected without the use of a hammer. The brilliantly colored, striped and mottled agates, and the bright, delicate tints of the quartz crystal, are particularly attractive to the majority of visitors. The beauty of these gaily colored rocks is quite extensively utilized by the inhabitants of the southern and southeastern hills to supply the place of growing plants which are generally denied by the inconvenience of the water supply. The quartzite of the Hills is well crystallized and heavy. I have one beautiful specimen of the dark Indian red variety through which passes a narrow line of pale blue, and the yellow quartzite or jasper sometimes shows dendrite markings. Very great quantities of agates and jasper, mostly in small pieces, but unlimited variety, are to be seen in portions of the Bad Lands, south of the fork of the Cheyenne River, with an almost equal abundance of baculites and numerous other fossils.

The wide expanse of deep ravines and sharp, barren ridges in the Bad Lands is a unique departure from the usual phases of natural scenery that inspire interest and wonder, but no great admiration, until one soon learns that the law of compensation has been strictly observed. The beauty of vegetation denied those desolate buttes and ridges is atoned for by a marvelous abundance of most wonderful crystals of aragonite, calcite, barite and satin spar; each to itself, or two or more combined in beautiful geodes or else arranged in great flat slabs crystallized on both sides of a thin sheet of lime. These slabs are composed of crystals of uniform size and of a pale green tint. But the geodes show some striking combinations of both crystals and colors with an exterior formed like box work, composed of a very heavy dark material said to be a mixture of barium, calcium and iron. The interior may be a bright green or lemon yellow, or perhaps the two in combination, while others yet may be either of these varieties with the addition of flat crystals of almost transparent satin spar. These crystals also occur in masses of the same box-like formation rising just so much above the surface of the barren ridge they occupy as to give it the appearance of a prairie dog town. One hill-top over which an abundance of detached crystals, of the palest water-green tint, has been spread, gave the impression of being covered with crushed ice. This transformation from a richly tropical to a marvelously barren region, was accomplished during the time when storms reigned over the Hills and ice ruled the country to the north and east.

The long slender barite crystals of a bright golden brown color are especially beautiful but are generally seen in the specimen stores, as the deposit is confined to limited areas and the few persons familiar with the locations are not over anxious to introduce the general public.

The fossil remains previously referred to are of course only a few of the most important, but it is remarked as a curious and notable fact that among the fossils of the lower orders of life in the Bad Lands, the heads have not been preserved. On account of scarcity of water it is necessary for parties to carry a supply even when they expect to be in the vicinity of the Cheyenne River and probably ford the South fork, as these waters carry in solution a quantity of alkali that renders them unfit for drinking, although the effects would not be fatal but simply the extreme reverse of pleasant.

No caves have been discovered in the Bad Lands, unless that name be applied to some of the geodes which are really grottoes, they being of sufficient size for a man to stand in. The Black Hills, however, contain some of the most remarkable caves ever yet discovered, of which those of greatest importance are Wind Cave and the three Onyx Caves near Hot Springs, in the southeastern part of the Hills, and Crystal Cave near Piedmont, in the northeast. All of these occur in the Carboniferous Limestone which forms an outer belt around the central mass or core of the Hills and no doubt, as previously suggested, owes its fissures to earthquakes which preceded or accompanied the porphyry intrusions by which in some localities its strata have been thrown into a vertical position.



CHAPTER IX.

WIND CAVE.

Wind Cave was discovered in 1881 by a hunter named Thomas Bingham, who being weary of a fruitless chase sat down to rest, and was soon startled by the sound of rushing wind on a calm day; and at the same time by a singular hair-raising sensation, as his hat was lifted from his head and thrown high in the air. He is said to have afterwards declared that although frightened nearly out of his wits, he determined to find the cause of his alarm, and on turning slightly discovered a hole about eight by twelve inches in size through which a roaring wind was issuing from the earth. As his hair maintained the aggressive attitude taken, the recovered hat could not be returned to its usual place, so an hour was spent in laying it across the opening and watching its instant projection into upper space; after which he set out to tell of the wonderful discovery. The announcement, however, was not received seriously and he was assured of the impossibility of the wind blowing through a hill of solid rock, and his brother explained to him that he had been too self-indulgent and consequently imagined the whole affair. A protest of total abstinence failed to inspire confidence, but the brother promised to go the next day to see for himself, and did. The hat was again placed over the opening as before, but instead of taking the expected lofty flight, it was drawn in and has never since been seen: the current had reversed. Soon after this the hole was enlarged to eighteen by thirty inches and the cave entered by quite a number of venturesome persons assisted by a long rope and ample personal courage. No other improvements were made, and only a short distance was explored, until Mr. J.D. McDonald settled on the property in 1890; since which time he and his sons have explored ninety-seven miles of passage and done such extensive work in opening up small passages and placing ladders, that it is now possible for visitors to travel long distances with surprising ease and comfort. The measure of distances in the cave is not by the usual guess-work method which has established the short-measure reputation for cave miles, but is done with a fair degree of accuracy by means of the twine used to mark the trail in exploring new passages. A careful measurement of the twine has shown it to run nine balls to the mile with a close average of regularity, so it is the custom to add another mile to the cave record as often as a ninth ball becomes exhausted.

Wind Cave is twelve miles north of Hot Springs by a good road which offers somewhat meager attractions to the artist, but is more liberal towards the geologist, and especially so in fine exposures of the gypsum bearing Red Beds of the Triassic. Limited patches of it are also exposed in each of the caves, generally carrying small quantities of selenite, which is crystallized gypsum, or in other words, crystallized sulphate of lime. This brilliant red color is so prominent in portions of the Hills, and attracts so much wondering attention in other well known regions of the West, that it would seem an unpardonable neglect of opportunity should we fail to again quote Prof. Todd for an explanation of the cause of the vivid coloring. Commencing he says: "Newton remarks concerning this:[4] 'A large percentage of peroxide of iron in the red beds, to which they owe their bright red color, bears an interesting relation to the absence of fossils. The material of which sediments are formed is derived, by the various processes of denudation, from the rocks of older land surfaces. Whatever iron they contain is dissolved from the land and transported in a condition of protoxide and some proto salt, such as the carbonate, and the process is facilitated by the presence of carbonic acid in the water. Now iron occurs in these older rocks as protoxide and peroxide, the former of which is soluble and the latter insoluble in water. The peroxide, however, by the action of organic matter, such as is held in solution in boggy waters, may be deprived of a portion of its oxygen and converted into protoxide and thus be rendered soluble. If the iron-bearing water is confined first in a shallow basin and exposed long to the action of the atmosphere the protoxide of iron absorbs the oxygen and is precipitated as an insoluble red peroxide of iron. If, however, plant or animal life be present in sufficient quantities, this oxidation is prevented. In case but little foreign material, clay or sand, has been brought by the waters, the deposit will be an iron ore. In case large quantities of foreign material are deposited from the waters at the same time, there will be produced, in the absence of life, a brown or red clay or sandstone, and in its presence a white or light colored formation containing the iron as a carbonate. We reason therefore from the condition in which the iron is found in the red beds, that there could have been little or no life, animal or vegetable, in the water from which it was deposited. The conclusion is strengthened by the fact of the large quantities of gypsum which are usually derived from the evaporation of saline waters. The degree of saline concentration which the precipitation of gypsum indicates, would be highly inimical to life. The presence of gypsum helps to account for the absence of life, and the absence of life accounts for the brilliant color. The three prominent characteristics of the formation (that is the red beds) are therefore quite in harmony with each other.'" (Geol. Blk. Hills, p. 138.)

Continuing the subject, Professor Todd says: "Accepting this explanation of the striking red color, the question remains as to how these circumstances, favorable for its formation, were produced.

"This red color is quite common in the whole Rocky Mountain region, not only on the eastern slope of the mountains, but to the various detached members of the system. We must, therefore, look for some extensive condition. If we seek some case in the present, parallel to the one already indicated, we perhaps can find none better than one on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, where, because of dry climate and the shallow waters, the deposition of gypsum and salt is now going on. In the gulf known as the Kara Boghaz, which is separated from the Caspian by a narrow strait, the evaporation is so rapid as to produce an almost constant flow from the sea into it. This strait and this gulf give the impression to an unlearned observer that there must be a mysterious subterranean outlet. The water flows in, carrying with it the salt and other soluble minerals. It then evaporates, leaving the salt and minerals behind."

This explanation is calculated to afford particular pleasure to the many visitors to the Garden of the Gods, in Colorado, who seldom receive satisfactory answers to their questions as to the reasons "why." In that much visited spot, however, the great mass of the deposit has been removed by erosion and the curiously shaped remnants are only such portions as were exceptionally hard and consequently withstood the action of the submerging waters.

Having made a considerable stop on the way to Wind Cave, we will now hurry on, but with good horses and a fine day the drive is one of great pleasure. The road gradually rises to higher ground and soon reaches a point six hundred feet more elevated than Hot Springs, with a charming view of hill and valley distances, and the way then continues over the hill-tops. At one point by the roadside a circle of tent-stones still marks the spot occupied by Sitting Bull for a week or more after the Custer massacre, while he camped here and in the security of his commanding position watched the movements of the government troops who were in search of him.

Hot Springs and Buffalo Gap are both included in the wide-spread view. Beside the road and scattered about in all directions are fine specimens of agates and quartz crystal which seem most beautiful and most abundant on the hills in the immediate vicinity of the cave, the crystals being either rose pink, pale green, yellow, white or colorless.

Arriving at the cave, the entrance is not visible, but between the ravine in which it is located and the road, there is the cave office and small hotel, on the ravine side of which an outer stairway leads down to the cave entrance, over which has been built a log cabin.

On account of the precautions taken for the protection of visitors, accidents are so rare that it might almost be said that none occur. Every person is required to register before entering the cave and all returning parties are carefully counted, although they are usually unaware of the fact. They are always accompanied by two guides and others are added if the party is large. No one is, on any account, permitted to wander in advance of the head guide or linger behind the one in the rear.

Within the cabin the immediate entrance to the cave is securely closed, and in order that the door may not be forced from its fastenings by the roaring wind which shakes it threateningly, it opens in, instead of out. This wind suggested the name Wind Cave, and will probably be utilized, at no very distant time, to generate electricity for lighting the cavern.

The wind is strongest at the surface, and a guide goes down first to place lights in sheltered nooks where the force has begun to diminish, about fifty feet below the entrance; and here we light our candles which, if guarded somewhat, are not extinguished unless the current is unusually severe. The balance of the descent of one hundred and fifty-five feet from the surface to the first chamber is easily accomplished.

This would be the least interesting room in the cave if it were not the Bride's Chamber, on account of having once been the scene of a marriage ceremony. But no others are in need of assistance of such romantic nature, as all are curiously and handsomely decorated, with such a charming variety of deposits, artistically massed, combined or contrasted, that every step brings fresh pleasure, and monotony is nowhere.

Passing from this room by a long, narrow passage, in the walls of which are observed many beautiful little pockets of crystals, attention is presently called to Lincoln's Fireplace, a perfectly natural specimen of the old-fashioned design broadly open in the chimney; doubtless just such an one as Mr. Lincoln's good mother hung the crane in and set the Dutch oven before. A little beyond and on the opposite side of the crevice is Prairie-dog town, not a very extensive town, to be sure, but so true a copy that one unfamiliar with the small animal and his style of architecture would afterwards easily recognize both. At one time his dogship was carried away by a too eager collector, but a letter to the suspected visitor brought him home by the next freight.

The Dutch Clock occupies a position on a shelf near by, and all southern visitors greet the Alligator as a familiar friend, as all of us joyfully meet any acquaintance from home.

A long narrow passage, formerly a "tight crawl," but later opened up by heavy blasting, must be traversed before we come to the Snow Ball Room, beautiful with round spots of untinted carbonate of lime, as if fresh soft snow had been thrown by the handful over walls and ceilings, with the additional ornamentation of calcite crystals. In the crevice beyond rises the Church Steeple, diminishing regularly, though roughly, in size, to a height of sixty feet, but not degraded with the little squirming stairway usually seen in Church spires.

The next room is the Post Office, in which we are for the first time introduced to the greatest peculiarity and most abundant formation known to the cave. Being a newly discovered addition to geology it has no scientific name and therefore is simply called box work, because it resembles boxes of many shapes and sizes. The formation of the box work is generally regarded as an unexplained and unexplainable mystery, but a careful study of various portions of the cave shows it in all stages of development and suggests a reasonable theory as to the cause of its origin and variety of development. The volcanic disturbances which have already been discussed as having been responsible for the various uplifts and depressions of the Black Hills region, and also for opening the fissures which gave the cave a beginning, must have supplied the conditions that were necessary to the formation of box work. And these preliminary conditions were merely cracks in the rock. By the violence of earth movement the limestone has been crushed, probably when the land was undergoing depression, prior to the upheaval which opened the great parallel fissures. The varying hardness of the rock, as well as proximity to the surface, would readily account for the difference in size of the fractures, which is from one-half inch to twelve inches; the largest being the most distant from the surface. That this crushing was done before the salt waters retired from the region, which was towards the close of the Cretaceous Age, is sufficiently evident in the fact that portions of the Red Beds show similar fractures with the cracks filled with gypsum, and gypsum, as we have already seen, is a salt water deposit.

After the crushing was done the cracks in the Carboniferous Limestone were filled with water heavily charged with calcium carbonate, taken in solution from the rock, first from pulverized particles, and afterwards by percolation and contact with exposed surfaces. This calcium carbonate was slowly deposited in crystalline form, so that in time the cracks were filled and the crushed rock firmly cemented with calcite seams. But in the meantime the removal of the calcium carbonate had started disintegration of the more exposed portions of the rock, which steadily continuing, finally reduced the porous body between the crystal seams to a soft clay which was gradually dissolved and carried out through small imperfections in the thin crystal sheets, leaving the empty box work as we find it. But where blasting has exposed fresh surfaces, much of the solid limestone carries the box-like sheets of crystal.

The thinnest box work is seen in the upper levels, from which the waters retired soonest, and the heaviest and most beautiful is in the Blue Grotto, on the eighth level where the water remained longest and its diminished volume became most heavily charged. In many places, however, there is another heavy variety known as pop-corn box work, which seems to be an impure lime carbonate not so finely crystallized as the other, but at the time of my visit no explanation had been given of the manner of its deposit; and my own theory that it was not formed under water had nothing to sustain it until, a few weeks later, while visiting Crystal Cave, the work was found in active progress on surfaces occupying every position, and the agent was dripping water. In all cases the original box work has been in thin sheets of calcite, and the heavy varieties are due to later deposits of calcite and aragonite crystals or, pop corn.

The colors are white, yellow, blue and chocolate brown; the last named predominating to a great extent in that portion of the cave most easily traveled by visitors, and forming the ceiling and a part of one wall in the Post Office, where, as has been said before, it first appears. The effect is not dreary as might be imagined, and parties are generally photographed here because one side of the room is white and greatly assists the flash. This is a smooth, perpendicular wall marking the line of the fissure and showing the strata of the rock in horizontal position whitened with a thin coating of carbonate of lime. All visitors are cordially invited to please themselves in leaving cards, letters or papers in this chamber, which is reserved for that purpose, and to refrain from leaving them in other portions of the cave or defacing the walls with names.

Roe's Misery is a long, narrow passage into which, during the early times before its size had been increased by blasting, a large man named Roe crawled to his sorrow. Being larger than the hole he stuck fast, and neither his own efforts nor those of the guides could relieve the situation until a rope was sent for, and having been brought, was securely fastened to his feet, when a long pull and a strong one finally opened the passage. It is told that he claimed to have reviewed all the objectionable acts of his life, by which his friends understood that he occupied the motionless position not less than three weeks.

Red Hall is very nearly described by its name and is quite a showy room, with the bright red walls contrasting sharply with their limited ornamentation of pure white carbonate of lime and pearly crystals of calcite.

Off to one side of Red Hall is a beautiful little chamber called Old Maids' Grotto, probably on account of its trim appearance and ideal location. It is so entirely concealed from the view of those passing on the public highway, that its existence is not even suspected, until special attention is called to its cosiness, and then it is necessary to mount an accumulation of great water-rounded rocks in order to obtain convincing evidence of its actual reality. It is a long, narrow room, shut in by a straight wall sufficiently high for rigid seclusion, or protection, without preventing a glimpse of passing events.

A break in the description is made here for the purpose of inserting a description, written at the author's request, by Mr. E.L. McDonald. He was generally our special guide. He has chosen to describe the route taken by the majority of visitors and therefore the balance of my observations within those limits are omitted.

All who are familiar with those passages and chambers will observe while reading the next chapter that no imaginary attractions are added to the existing facts, but many interesting minor points are missing.

Only such changes are made as were agreed to as the condition on which he would attempt a piece of work so at variance with his usual occupations.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] U.S. Geological Survey. Geology of the Black Hills. Henry Newton, p. 138.



CHAPTER X.

WIND CAVE CONTINUED.

THE FAIR GROUNDS ROUTE.

"At 9:30 in the morning the train bringing health-seekers and tourists arrives at Hot Springs, a beautiful little city nestled in the southernmost foot-hills of the world-reputed Black Hills of South Dakota. The choice of a hotel is soon made, and when located, the new-comers observe the other guests and acquaint themselves with the attractions of the resort. Probably during the day they are approached by the solicitor of the wonderful Wind Cave, who explains that the best way to reach the cave is by means of the coach and four seen at the hotel in the morning, and arrangements are made for the following day. The next morning, seated in the tally-ho coach with strangers who are soon acquaintances, you start on a beautiful twelve-mile drive to one of nature's most interesting sights.

"Immediately after leaving town you begin to admire the scenery and enjoy the cool, refreshing breezes, wafted from the mountains to the north, down the slopes to the arid plains.

"After climbing a gently sloping 'hog-back' for about eight miles, you are at the top of the divide and one thousand feet higher than Hot Springs, which may be seen on the left. Looking ahead you can see Harney Peak, the highest mountain in the Black Hills district; and on the right you see Buffalo Gap, through which the creek runs that heads at Min-ne-pa-juta Springs. The Indians used to drive buffalo through this gap, hence its name. A small but thriving little town to the eastward takes its name from this Buffalo Gap. From here you begin to go down a gentle and winding incline to the cave, which is reached all too soon.

"At the office you register and procure tickets, and then have from one-half to three-quarters of an hour in which to eat lunch or dine at the hotel. Then all congregate in the office, from whence the start is made, after every one has put on a cave cap, not a suit, as such is entirely unnecessary. The guide leads the way to the entrance of the cave which is separated from the office by some little distance, and is located in the bed of a long since dry run, which in former times has bared the carboniferous strata, and within this kind of rock the cave is found.

"As the author has asked me for an article descriptive of the cave, I will only attempt to say something of our medium length route to the Fair Grounds, or in other words, the Fair Grounds' Route. A collective description of the whole cave would take months—even years—to complete. Besides, the above route is the one most used by visitors at the present time.

"On entering the Cave House (a log structure) you will in all probability ask from whence comes the murmur of a waterfall. The guide answers that it is the rushing current of air at the mouth of the cave, sometimes in and sometimes out. Prof. J.E. Todd, in bulletin No. 1, S. Dakota Geological Survey, p. 48, says: 'This phenomenon is found to correspond with the varying pressure of the barometer, and with its single opening and capacious chambers is easily accounted for.'

"The rushing air is sometimes strong enough to require a man's weight to open the entrance door. Five days and nights is the longest time the wind has been known to move in one direction without ceasing. This is one of nature's greatest atmospherical phenomena.

"Some one says, 'Tickets, please!' and into the hole we go, single file down a lighted passageway to where we can light our candles. After descending about one hundred and fifty-five feet we come into the Bridal Chamber (named by some of the earlier explorers before the present management took hold of the property), which is eight or ten feet in length by twenty feet in breadth. Passing along some distance, the Snow-ball Room is entered. It carries this name on account of little rosettes of carbonate of lime sticking to the irregular ceiling. This room is pretty narrow and some fifty feet in length.

"The Post Office is next and soon reached. The ceiling is covered with the box work formation somewhat resembling Post Office boxes. You will no doubt wonder why it carries such a common name.

"Just because after searching in what books on geology and other sciences we could get, we could not find it described nor any formation resembling it; hence its common name, as we have named the pop-corn work, frost work etc., from their appearance.

"The dimensions of the Post Office are some eighty feet in length by twenty feet in width, with an average ceiling height of probably twelve feet. Red Hall is the room next in order, and has on either side a red bank of sandy, micaceous clay.

"Just to the left is a very pretty little grotto of box work. This room is very odd in make-up. The floor is very rough and dips about fifteen feet in its length of sixty feet, and includes a short flight of stairs. The lowest end of the room is prettily decorated, and some pleasing blends of color attract the eye. To the left is the Old Maids' Grotto, a pretty little nook that would please any maid old or young.

"After passing through the White Room we turn to the left along the crevice, and after traveling some little distance reach The Grand Opera, a very narrow room but some forty feet in length. Chopin's Nocturne is a small grotto in the right hand wall named by the famous violinist, Edouard Remenji.

"The Devil's Lookout is reached by a few steps. It is a crevice about ten feet wide at the base and sixty-five feet in height. This place is remarkable for its columns of rock just over head. The pathway leads to Milton's Study, some fifty feet distant. Turning into the crevice again, some twenty feet are traveled when attention is called to Seal Rocks. Sampson's Palace is the next room in order: here we see some stalagmitic water formation on the left wall and the ceiling is one of the most beautiful yet seen on the trip.

"We pass along to Swiss Scenery, a very prettily decorated room fifty feet in length by fifteen in height. The box work is very pretty, shading from yellow to dark brown. The general appearance of the room would suggest its name, it being rougher than any other in the immediate vicinity. Passing under an arch we enter the Queen's Drawing-room. Here the box work has been developed beyond any on our pathway thus far. From the ceiling it hangs like draperies and on the left wall is about twenty-four inches in depth. On the whole this room is elegant enough for the most exacting queen. We step from this room into the M.E. Church. Rev. Mr. Hancher, President of the Black Hills Methodist College, was I believe the first to hold song and prayer service in this room; the pulpit is on the left as you pass through. The guides always ask if any wish to sing or worship, as any one has a perfect right in a dedicated Chapel.

"The Giant's Causeway is only a few steps beyond. This bit of scenery has some resemblance to the famed basalt attraction on the coast of Ireland. We 'duck' our heads under the Arch of Politeness and rise to a standing position in Lena's Arbor, a very irregular shaped room admired by a great many of our visitors.

"We enter Capitol Hall at the side, about midway between the ends. It is the largest room yet visited, being some two hundred feet from end to end, with a very high ceiling. Here we notice the walls and ceiling are bare of box work and other formation, and are clean and white. The decorative appearance exceeds any room yet visited. After getting into line again we go down a flight of stairs to Odd Fellows' Hall, a chamber that on examination suggests its name. In the ceiling is situated the 'All seeing eye,' one of the emblems of that august body, and at a little distance the 'Three links;' also in the ceiling, and just under the latter is situated a rock very much resembling a goat. Attention is called to the first appearance of pop-corn work, a very peculiar formation resembling pop-corn after it has broken open, and in this part of the cave it is quite plentiful.

"We now descend another flight of stairs into Turtle Pass, where a large turtle rests beside the path, and just beyond is the Confederate Cross-roads, where the fissure is crossed by another forming a cross with perfect right angles. The right hand passage is used for specimens only; straight ahead leads to the Garden of Eden, the end of our shortest route; we take the left hand path and journey through Summer Avenue, some seventy feet in length, and reach the Scenes of Wiclow, a large and high room, beautifully decorated with box work and pop-corn. The ceiling and the left wall from floor to ceiling are fine box work. On the right you see dark space, as a very large portion of this room is unused, but we pass the Piper's Pig. List! The guide is pounding on the Salvation Army Drum, a large projecting rock that on being struck with the closed hand gives a sound very much like a bass drum.

"After walking across a short plank we enter Kimball's Music Hall, a very beautiful room settled between two crevices and lined with box work. Viewing the ceiling from the fissure on the right it is seen to be smooth and fringed with pop-corn. In some places the boxes are closed, resembling finished honey-comb. Over head box work can be seen as high as the light penetrates. On the whole, I think this is the finest crevice in the explored cave.

"Looking straight ahead you wonder how the party can travel over such a road as presents itself to view, but the guide turns into an arch in the right hand wall and enters Whitney Avenue. After walking across the bridge over shadowy depths, our pathway lies for some fifty feet in one of the most interesting ovens in the cave, at the end of which we enter Monte Cristo's Palace by going down a flight of stairs. This room has the greatest depth beneath the surface of any of the Fair Grounds' Route, which is four hundred and fifty feet. In this room is noticed a decided change in the box work, which is much heavier than any seen, or that will be seen on this route, and the color is light blue.

"I guess I will give the party a talk while we rest under Monte Cristo's Diamonds, a very sparkling cluster, about six inches in diameter, of silica crystals.

"After studying the cave, it appears that it did not form in the same manner as most others; on account of the absence of sink holes, the regular arrangement of the chambers, the regular dip of the rock to the south-east from five to ten degrees, and the regularity of the long vertical fissures running north-west south-east. In fact, the whole cave is made up of these fissures and it seems that the water has entered narrow crevices opened by some eruptive force.

"You see small holes eaten in the ceilings and walls in every direction, which indicates that the water came from a higher level, and being under great pressure, wanted passage out. It seems the cave was a reservoir for a long time, then after the water stopped flowing in it slowly receded, and in settling the overcharged waters covered the rocks and specimens with a calcareous coating, very thin in the upper portions of the cave and getting thicker the deeper you go, giving evidence as you see, of slowly settling. Had the waters rushed out they would in all probability have left the rocks uncoated as in all other caves, with one exception, the Crystal Cave, some seventy-five miles to the north of Wind Cave.

"As we have some more caves to see we must journey on.

"Taking one last look at Monte Cristo's Diamonds we pass into Milliner's Avenue, a very pretty avenue indeed with nearly as many colors as a milliner's show-window would present. About mid-way of this avenue we cross the bridge over Castle Garden, a room in the eighth tier beneath the surface. From this avenue we step into the Assembly Room. Here the formations are covered with a gypsum crystal that sparkles with wonderful brilliancy. On the right is a passage leading to the Masonic Temple, a room that any body of Masons would be proud of could they hold lodge meetings in it. The passage on the left is the terminus of the Pearly Gates' Route, the longest developed route in the cave. After moving along some distance we see the Bad Lands, and then come into the Tennis Court. This room has the net in the ceiling and I suppose the party can furnish the raquet (racket). On the right hand side of this room there is tier upon tier of box work; looking to the left, you shudder at the almost bottomless pit just beside the pathway. Here we take a rest preparatory to climbing up to the Marble Quarry, a task of two flights of stairs. This is a very large room and has the most uneven floor, ceiling and walls of any that our visitors see, and is barren of specimens excepting in the first part over the stairs where there is some box work of very pretty structure and color. Some distance up the path we see on one side the Ghost of 'She,' and on the other the Devil's Punch Bowl, a large rock with a basin-shaped hole about thirty-six inches across and sixteen inches deep, but lo! the bottom has been broken out: which is very appropriate as South Dakota is at present a prohibition state. A winding path is followed until attention is called to the Sheep's Head above an arch over the passage, and the ceiling here is of flint, the ledge of which is four inches thick.

"Passing under the arch we enter Johnstone's Camp Ground, so named because Paul Alexander Johnstone camped in this room while accomplishing the third of his greatest mind-reading feats, during which he remained in the cave seventy-two hours. He was locked in his room at the Evans Hotel while a committee secreted the head of a gold pin in the cave. On their return, after being blindfolded, he led them to the livery stable, and securing a team drove to the cave and found the pin in the Standing Rock Chamber, beyond the Pearly Gates, and then drove back to the city still blindfolded.

"Down one short flight of stairs and we are in the Waiting Room, so called on account of persons waiting here while the rest of their party finished the trip by climbing up the Alpine Way. This difficult climb was made until the route was developed via the Marble Quarry. A steep pathway and one flight of stairs now bring us to the Ticket Office, and another short stairway leads into the room above, which is the Fair Grounds. We enter the right wing, which measures two hundred and six links in length and forty-nine in width at the narrowest place. We are now in the third level and no box work is seen, but the ceiling (which is low) shows many interesting fossils. The central dome is some fifty feet in height, and passing to the right the guide seats the party in such a position that the frost work on the wall can be seen to advantage. This is the largest part of the Fair Grounds and measures six hundred and forty-five links long, exclusive of the right wing, and has a width of fifty-three links, which with a number of wings added, makes it one of the largest under-ground rooms within American caverns.

"A great many visitors look at their cuff-buttons when told we have twenty-five hundred rooms included in ninety-seven miles of passageways. Of course they do not understand how we get the mileage. In going to the Fair Grounds we travel about three miles. In each fissure there are eight levels, which makes twenty-four miles of cave from the entrance to the Fair Grounds.

"Of the formations in the cave, the different kinds are on different levels, the stalactites and stalagmites nearest the surface on the second, the frost work on the third. This formation is in most instances as colorless as snow. The mode of its formation is not thoroughly understood, but is found in such positions as suggest its being formed by vapors overcharged as spoken of about the water. It is almost always on an over-hanging rock, over or near some fissure leading to a deeper portion of the cave. Box work in this level is scattering and fragile: in the fourth it is the prevailing formation: in the fifth it is heavier and a little darker; in the sixth it varies in style and color, and pop-corn appears, a queer formation resembling pop-corn ready to eat. It is not so purely white here as in the lower levels, seventh and eighth. In the seventh the box work is heavier than any seen on the Fair Grounds' Route and the color is nearly blue, having a faded appearance. In this tier is also found a good deal of mineral wool, which must not be mistaken for asbestos. It sometimes attains a length of eighteen inches and at one place where it seems to come out of a hole two inches in diameter, and drops down like a grey beard, we have named it Noah's Beard.

"In the eighth tier we find very beautiful formations of carbonate of lime, and the box work is decidedly blue, the boxes larger, and their partitions one half inch thick.

"We have been deeper than the eighth tier but in narrow crevices barely admitting a man of average stature. In these the calcareous coating is much thicker than in any higher portions of the cave, but very little sign of box work is seen.

"Sometimes we make a comparison between the cave and a sponge. Take for instance a sponge as large as an apple barrel and there would be holes in it as big as a man's thumb and closed hand. Now take a sponge, four miles square and five hundred feet deep with holes in proportion to the little sponge, and you have an illustration of The Wonderful Wind Cave, of Custer County, South Dakota."



CHAPTER XI.

WIND CAVE CONTINUED.

PEARLY GATES AND BLUE GROTTO ROUTE.

A very much longer, more beautiful, and also more difficult journey than the one just described may be taken by those in whom the desire to see is greater than the fear of fatigue, or possibly, some little danger. With this object in view the Fair Grounds' Route is followed through Monte Cristo's Palace and into Milliner's Avenue. Here we leave it by dropping off the bridge into a rough hole, which proves to be a passage descending into Castle Garden directly beneath the Avenue, and a room of considerable size, plentifully supplied with bowlders. Although interesting to visit, it has no points of such special merit as would seem to require a detailed account, the main importance attaching to it being the fact that it is the first portion of the eighth level visited. A little beyond, however, is something quite new. The floor is covered with a light yellow crust of calcite crystal, sufficiently strong to bear the weight of a limited number of guests without much fracture. It generally gives a hollow sound when struck, which is easily accounted for as there are small holes noticed by which steam evidently made its escape, and through these cavities can be seen but they are shallow. One place shows the crust broken up and with the edges of the pieces overlapped, like ice broken by a sudden rise of back-water, and in this position they have been firmly cemented.

This is where the slowly receding waters of the cave lingered in shallow pools above the small crevices long after the main portions had become dry. That the crust was formed on top of the water, instead of beneath its surface, has been proved by the only body of water now standing in the cave. This is called Silent Lake, and being situated on another route will be described in its proper place, but when discovered no water was visible nor its presence even suspected until the crust gave way under the weight of an explorer. The thin sheet of yellow calcite crystal thus broken was the same as that seen in great abundance in the now perfectly dry eighth level. The gradually decreasing volume of water has left a smooth yellow coat on portions of the walls where irregularities or slopes were favorable, and at least one such place is vividly remembered if once seen. A steep incline of about fifteen feet leads to a small oval hole through the wall; towards this we crawled with no great ease; but getting to the hole was far easier than going through it into a tiny cubby not high enough to sit comfortably upright in, and too small to permit an average sized human being to turn around. Close on the left it is shut in by another wall pierced by two holes similar to that just passed, and each revealing a miniature chamber scarcely more than three feet in either direction and eighteen inches high. Being directed to examine the ceiling of the first, it was done with some difficulty and much satisfaction, for there in the center was a most exquisite bit of art work, a circular disk of "drusy" quartz about twelve inches in diameter and having the appearance of a flat rosette of fine black lace, in open pattern with small diamonds thickly strung on every thread; a brilliant, sparkling mass of gems. After Mr. McDonald had carefully removed a geode from the other little chamber, he slid down into a fourth, the last of the diminutive suite, having sufficient height to allow a sitting posture with raised head, and opened the small jewel case, while I examined the place it came from. Here all was calcite crystal heavily massed in various forms, and a harmony of blue and brown, with half a dozen round, unbroken, perfect geodes hanging from the ceiling like oriole nests. The geode taken proved on opening to be especially fine, being filled with pearly white calcite crystals of both the dog-tooth and nail-head forms, and was kindly presented to be added to the collection of cave specimens already purchased in town, to which were also added handsome pieces of "drusy" quartz, cave coral, and tufa and mineral wool.